Sarawak, The Land Of Hornbills (Part 2)

Like I said in the previous post of my vacation in Sarawak, we went to Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV) on the second day. Obviously I’ve never been here, nor I have made any research about this place. So I don’t know what to expect. The journey to SCV was really amazing. Since SCV is situated at the foothills of Mount Santubong (quite a remote place), the view along the way was very green and foggy. You could see the mountains, green sceneries and South China Sea too which was quite fascinating for me.

The rainy weather made it even colder

Mount Santubong from afar..

Becoming clearer..

And clearer!

After about an hour of driving, we finally arrived at SCV. It wasn’t that hard to find this place because it was the only route heading there. We were greeted by one of the workers there and he explained about the fees upon entering the SCV. Also, we were given an SCV passport as a guide.

The passports..

Anyway, the fees are as following :

Adult : RM55
Children : RM30
Student : RM15

Free entrance for 5 years old and below. If you’re referring to the SCV website, it’s stated there RM60 for adult. Yep, that’s actually true too. Remember, you actually can bargain the fee and pay less especially if you’re in a big group (don’t do it at the ticket counter tho *wink* ). That’s why we just paid RM55 per person.🙂

My husband and I at SCV entrance. That’s the legendary Mount Santubong as the background.

At SCV, there are 8 Sarawak traditional houses for you to explore, such as Bidayuh House, Melanau House, Orang-Ulu House, Iban, Penan and others. Each house represented their ethnics, exhibited their beautiful costumes and showed you unique traditions and cultures.

Before entering SCV, haruslah tangkap gambar cenggini.. Hehe

Old Bidayuh House, which was already closed for safety. Fret not, the new one was just a few metres away hehe

The bamboo floor. I wasn’t afraid to step on this, but someone was, since he thought he was too heavy. Hihi no comment

Our lucky charms? Hahah

I didn’t take pictures of the whole house unfortunately, because I was so excited choosing and buying the traditional bracelets that were sold there. Hubby was also busy chatting with the house guard who was selling hard wood.

The house guard in their traditional costume. That’s not hubby by the way. Hahah

One of these was claimed as the hardest wood in the world. Hmm..

At 11.15 a.m. we rushed back to the House Theatre to watch 45-minute cultural dancing show by SCV dancing crew. The theatre was big and air-conditioned so it was very comfortable. Be careful not to doze off because you don’t wanna miss the awesome performance by the SCV dancing crew!

By the way, in case you arrive at noon and miss the show at 11.30 a.m., you can stick around until 4.00 p.m. to catch the next one.

There were brief introductions before every dance performance, like the one to celebrate guests, the one to comfort the souls after a death etc, but by the time I’m writing this right now (a month after the vacation), I can’t remember those details anymore. Hihi.. But all the informations were given in the passport I showed you earlier. I was just too malas nak check balik.

Before entering the theatre..

Inside the theatre.

Hubby and my nephew, Aneeq.

Colourful..

The compilation of all the performances..

At the last part, I dared hubby to dance with the dancers but hubby maluuuuu. Muahaha

I was very much satisfied with the performance. I walked out of the theatre happy but sadly, hungry too. We chose to have lunch at their cafe. Big lunch. Hihi. I’ve been so hooked up with the Umai there since the first time I tried it. It was actually raw fish cooked by lemon and mixed with onions, chillies and ginger (and lemongrass kot). It was an appetizer and hell, so yummy! We also chose to have our food served in a bamboo to make it look more ‘Sarawak’ lah kunun haha. Tho it was quite expensive, but screw it. Bukan selalu kannn.. Hehhehe

The fooooooddddd! Ala, you can’t see the umai in this pic. It was in the other side of the bamboo. Tak nampak from this angle..

After lunch, we continued our exploration to the other traditional houses. I didn’t go and take pictures of every house here but honestly, the experiences of entering the houses quite differed from one another. You need to go to ALL seven houses to maximize your experience here.

The inside of Iban Longouse (Rumah Panjang)

Interesting cultural display here..

Danish and Darling on the swing..

When we got into this longhouse, we were welcomed right away by the smell of smoke. It was uncomfortable at first and a lil bit weird too. I had to cover my nose and mouth to avoid myself from coughing. Little did I know, the smoke was actually used to get rid of the bad spirit that might be there because of the skulls they kept in the house. Or so I was told. But yeah, I did see skulls there. So it means those were real skulls? Hmmm… Maybe.

That’s hubby trying the blowpipe at Penan Hut. It’s an important weapon among Penan people to hunt animals. Self-defense pun boleh kot.

3 tries for only RM1.00. Hubby tried this once and none of his shots hit the target ahhaha

Orang Ulu House. Gila tinggi. Photo courtesy by Google.

I purposely challenged myself to climb this Orang Ulu House using this unique stairs. I was a bit ‘gayat’. You can tell by looking at my body postures. Haha.

Crafts they sold inside the house. So cantik!

Something to munch. Tapioca fritters.

Sword-making shed.

They use special knives to create that ‘hair’. You need to have the skill too. Nway, is it fair of me to call it hair? It does look like hair.

We then went to the next house, Melanau Tall House. I love the location and surrounding of this house, simply because of its scenery. The green trees, especially the foggy hills that were clearer here compared to at the other houses.

For a moment, I did think I wanted to live here…

I didn’t get into the Melanau House because I caught my eye on something.

The buluh game! Hahah. KakLong and I, the only ones who were so sporting to tried it, but sadly both failed.

Now, the final house. Chinese House. When I was little (20-22 years ago), I always went to Sabak town with my mom or dad to buy groceries. I still remember, the designs of the shophouses then were quite the same as this house except for this one was more to a farm house. I said this because once I stepped into this house, everything in it was so familiar. It kinda threw myself back to those years.

It was almost 4 by the time we stepped out of this house. I was exhausted already but we still had one more mission to accomplish. Before that, we went to the surau first to perform prayers. Around 4.30 p.m., we (the girls and the ladies only, the boys and the men dah penat. Diorg nak duduk kat cafe je makan eskem) went back to Bidayuh house to accomplish the mission. What was the mission? Trying the Bidayuh costume on! Yeaayy! We wanted to try it on earlier but the place was crowded and the waiting queue was long. This time when we came back, no queue, no one. Yeay!

Don’t forget to pay RM10.00 per person peeps! Yup, that was the fee.

A Bidayuh girl? Hahaha

My sis and I.. Excited muke haku.

The sisters and the nieces.. I forgot to ask the lady in charge about the differences between the two costumes. Or she did explain and I didn’t pay attention? Hihi

Mission accomplished!

Okay, since we’ve completed the whole sections of the village, now it was time to bid SCV goodbye. I’ve always loved learning about cultures but I’ve never thought I could learn this much by being here. Thank you SCV!

Before we went back to the city, we stopped by at Damai Resort to take some fresh air by the South China Sea.

Hubby took some time sleeping on the bench here, right after I took this pic.